


Don’t (Touch)Starve

by kusege



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Character Death, Editing? Beta reading? Never heard of her does she go here, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, References to Adventure Mode, Self-Harm, Sensory Deprivation, Trauma, Understimulation, but it’s dont Starve they’re fine, touch starvation, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:08:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23492197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kusege/pseuds/kusege
Summary: “It’s been weeks - months? Seasons, for sure - since he’s seen another person. As far as he knows, he’s alone in this part of the Constant. Maxwell is fine with this. He’s fine with a lot of things. Everything is fine.“(Everything is not fine)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35





	Don’t (Touch)Starve

It’s been weeks - months? Seasons, for sure - since he’s seen another person. As far as he knows, he’s alone in this part of the Constant. Maxwell is fine with this. He’s fine with a lot of things. Everything is fine.

— 

It’s towards the end of spring when a warm rain catches him unawares, exploring a graveyard in search of any useful or valuable pieces of junk. He grumbles to himself as the clouds gather overhead, thinking of his suit more than his mental state. When the rain starts to fall, however, his thoughts pause. In fact, they still entirely.

It’s a heavy rain, dense and wet and comfortable, and the droplets feel like fleeting touches, fingerprints on his arms and head and back. Maxwell stands there, holding his shovel, dumbfounded by the feeling. Something about it makes him want to cry. He doesn’t, of course. But the strain in the back of his throat makes it very clear to him just how close he came.

—

After the rain, Maxwell comes to realize that his body is… uncomfortable. Painful isn’t really the right word, it’s more of an itch. A desperate buzz just underneath the skin, crying out for more rain, more sensation, more  _ touch. _

It’s disconcerting, to say the least. He’s above these human needs - or at least, he was for so long that he forgot that he wasn’t. He isn’t lonely, not at all, so why is his body… suffering?

He tries to put it out of his mind, but it’s just not possible. He finds himself searching for substitutes; placing his palms on tree bark, laying down in hot sand, even, in one mistake of an incident, heating the point of a spear in a fire and carefully placing it on his arm. That scar won’t be going anywhere for a while.

It gets so bad that his nights become filled with broken dreams of touch, hands reaching for him, the intention behind them not mattering so much as the fact that they could touch him, grab his arm or his jacket or, hell, his neck, he’d take getting murdered at this point if it meant human contact.

He tries to get Charlie to attack him late one night, but she seems reluctant to, and day breaks with no sound of her hissing or sign of her claws. A shame.

—

It has to do with the Throne, he suddenly decides on a hot summer day, hiding beneath a tree in the oasis. None of the other survivors ever acted like this, and if there’s anything he remembers about that time he spent there, it was how empty everything was, the way that nothing felt real, nothing felt at  _ all, _ other than the pain around his wrists and chest and legs, which eventually only seemed to intensify the feeling of distance from reality. He could barely even feel his own breathing during that time.

With that mystery resolved, he goes back to trying to put the need for sensation out of his mind, and fishes. He only puts his hands in the water to see if that helps a few times. 

(It does help, a little. But not in the way he wants it to.)

—

When he finally dies, ripped alive by hounds, he somehow finds himself giddy, laughing as he bleeds out, body vaguely satisfied everywhere that the hounds have bitten.

—

Maxwell is not alone in his next life. (Thank god.) He wouldn’t  _ really _ have picked the people he’s been trapped with this time, but beggars can’t be choosers and all that.

Being around people seems to make it worse. He reaches this conclusion after Wes’ staring makes it obvious that his quiet whining breaths are actually audible. He was never this bad on his own. Something about having these opportunities and being denied them is driving him insane very quickly. 

He tries to quiet the whining. It returns, louder than before. It seems to be entirely involuntary, as if his breaths are just going to sound like this from now on. He hopes they won’t - he’d rather stab himself in the throat than whimper like a fool for the remainder of this life.

Maxwell is snapped out of his cycle of self-hatred and self-pity by the sudden awareness that Wes has moved. Wes is, in fact, standing before him, clearly puzzled, one hand outstretched slightly. “What do you want,” Maxwell asks, voice wavering on the words more times than he really wants to admit.

Wes looks up thoughtfully, as if trying to think of how to explain, before shaking his head and extending the hand - slowly, like Maxwell is going to startle if he moves too fast - and resting it on his shoulder, watching his expression the whole time. Maxwell does not tell Wes to stop. Maxwell might have tears come to his eyes when contact is actually made.

The world’s slowest hug commences, with Wes moving centimeters at a time and Maxwell falling apart more and more, unraveling in his arms. Wes does not remark on Maxwell’s resulting sobs. Maxwell does not remark on the fact that Wes was willing to hug him. Eventually, they cannot move any closer to each other, and just rest for many minutes.

The hug does not last forever, and Wes pulls away just as slowly as he approached. Maxwell takes the time to pull himself together, fix his hair, and wipe away any obvious tears from his face. Wes is just turning away when Maxwell calls out, “wait!” 

Wes does.

“How did you… why did you think to do that?”

Wes turns around, an incomprehensible look on his face - odd, given that his emotions are generally so telegraphed that a half-blind infant could read them. He moves to answer, pauses, and shakes his head.

“Oh, go on.” 

More head shaking, this time, a bit nervous.

“I’m  _ asking.” _

Another pause. Then, some slow motions, less emotive than his typical miming, but still, the meaning carries.

“... I never thought of it that way.”

A shrug.

“... he did hug you after he let you out, didn’t he.”

A nod.

“...”

More miming.

“Wh- no, I’m not  _ jealous! _ How dare you-“

And Wes is running away with a smile on his face. 

Maxwell sighs. His body is no longer eating itself alive with the need for contact. He is smiling, too.

**Author's Note:**

> The author needed a hug and couldn’t get one, so they gave Maxwell one instead.
> 
> Please kudos/comment if you liked this fic!! Support my 3am writing habits


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